The present invention relates to cookie or cake topping machines and more specifically to a machine for producing soft cookie sandwiches in which there is a top half, a bottom half and a filling between them.
Many machines are presently in the art which automatically make sandwich cookies. Most sandwich cookie forming machines are designed to handle sandwich cookie halves having a relatively hard and rigid texture. This machinery is not applicable in dealing with cookies having a texture and softness which is similar to cake. In other machines, the cakelike cookies come out of the oven onto a cooling conveyor in misaligned rows or in rows which vary according to linear position. Most of such sandwiching machinery is programmed to operate at spaced intervals which does not take into consideration the slight variations in placement of cookies along the processing belt. This variation results in misapplication of the filling and misalignment and misapplication of filling causes product waste along with the cost of sorting acceptable cookies from the mass of cookies. This problem has generally been solved by taking the cookies off the cooling conveyor by hand and placing the cookies on a continuous cookie making machine. Attempts have been made to automatically index the cookies into proper position through the use of a pusher bar. Once the cookies are aligned they are then fed by a conveyor into the sandwich machine where a filler deposits a load of filling on the bottom cookie half forming a mound in the center of the bottom half of the cookie. This mound of filling requires either that the cookie must be rolled so that the filling is spread over the cookie or when the top is applied that it be pressed down to evenly distribute the filling between the two halves. While such techniques are acceptable in processing hard cookies, they tend to compress and crush the softer, cake-type cookies.
It is the object of the present invention to synchronize the various functions of the machine according to the arrival and placement of the two cookie halves. The machine filler of the invention applies the filling to the bottom half of the cookie in such a manner that it is relatively evenly distributed in a ring or doughnut shape so that it does not require a pressing down of the top half or rolling the bottom half to accomplish an even distribution of the filling. The inventive machine also aligns the cookies received from the cooling conveyor and deposits them in aligned rows in a sequential manner so that alternate rows are carried in position by a top conveyor and a bottom conveyor. The cookies carried on the bottom conveyor are turned so that the side which rested on the oven surface or plate is upturned to receive the filling thus presenting an attractive symmetrical cookie sandwich.